The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
In conventional database systems, users access their data resources in one logical database. A user of such a conventional system typically retrieves data from and stores data on the system using the user's own systems. A user system might remotely access one of a plurality of server systems that might in turn access the database system. Data retrieval from the system might include the issuance of a query from the user system to the database system. The database system might process the request for information received in the query and send to the user system information relevant to the request.
Software applications used in the database system are used to facilitate data retrieval as well as to carry out other operations of the database system. To ensure proper and efficient operations of the database system, software applications need to be tested periodically. Unfortunately, testing a software application can be a slow, inefficient process. For example, there can be numerous (e.g., 100,000) automated tests to validate various features of a software application used a database system. On a typical day, there may be over 300 changes made to the application in the form of change lists. Conventionally, to provide per change list results, 100,000 tests would need to be run on each of the 300 change lists, and a user would need to manually compare the results before and after each change list. Such an effort would require a huge number of machines or it would take days to get the resulting data.